


Court this Disaster

by Lunatic_Lullaby



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Depression, Mental Illness, Self-Loathing, fighting suicidal depression alone, which is like being up a creek without a paddle OR a canoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatic_Lullaby/pseuds/Lunatic_Lullaby
Summary: Tim needs help with his depression but won't allow himself to find it.





	Court this Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: suicidal feelings, depressive spiral, lots of bitterness
> 
> Set after Battle for the Cowl and before Bruce's resurrection.

It was a bad night.  Honestly, it had been a bad week but at the end of it when Tim only had his disappointments to show for all the work he'd done, he felt a whole new wave of exhaustion sweep over him, until his brain was too lethargic to entertain more than the voice of self-disgust telling him how useless he was, how useless he had always been, how the proof was in his empty life and broken heart and a half dozen coffins for the friends and family who he couldn't save and sometimes wanted to join so badly.  
  
There were promises he'd made to Dick, before everything had changed, but Tim had no way to keep them.  He wasn't the same person as he had been then, he was older and wiser and Not A Robin, Not A Child Anymore.  He needed to be better, so that people would stop looking at him like he was broken.  
  
Tim didn't think reaching out to someone would be wise.  He wasn't someone who could _do_ that anymore; he couldn't afford to draw that sort of attention to himself.

The only person he still felt safe talking to was Cass and they'd never talked about _this._   The last person he was honest with was Dick, _before_ -

Everyone believed he was crazy now and he had to wonder how much Dick _told_ them all. Tim never thought he would _tell._

He thought it was the real reason Dick lost faith in him and now he had to spend so much energy convincing him he's sane, he wasn't about to make _that_ phone call, the one where he had to hope it wasn't a bad time, swallow his pride and say, "I'm not okay," and _then_ hope that -  
  
_Hope._   He had just spent four years humiliating himself by foolishly hoping to be _wanted,_ to be more than only useful, with _stars_ in his eyes that had probably shone at every iteration of 'little brother.'  
  
But Tim knew - he knew, even when he didn't feel it - that Dick loved him.  The ideas in his head - that Nightwing loved _Robin,_ whoever that was at the time, but Tim was exhausting, especially in his grief, and Dick was tired of always having to be there for him, was glad to finally be rid of him and told Steph and the Titans that they needed to get their basketcase of an ex-Robin to a doctor because it wasn't his _problem_ anymore, Tim should never have been his problem but he was always so needy, it was disgusting -  
  
Those thoughts.  Those thoughts were constant but he knew they only made sense to him because they matched what he felt.  He felt abandoned but then, _of course_ he was disposed of, he should have expected it because he felt how burdensome he was to everyone in his (borrowed, pretend) family and true he was so capable, could make himself useful for them but - Tim was still too annoying, he couldn't help it, and when people offered to be there for him he didn't think they knew how much he needed and he never knew when it was too much, when he should have kept his mouth shut, stopped expecting so much from people when they all had their own lives to live.  
  
That sounded like the wrong sort of thought, the kind he should try to throw away, but it was true, too.  He didn't think it just felt true because - well, he had evidence to back that up, didn't he?  He could see the exhaustion on his friends' faces sometimes, the looks that said he just didn't know when to quit and they were passed the line for how much of his warped attempts at socialization they were willing to take.

   
  
He couldn't really tell if it was just him.  If he was only hurting himself, as he tried not to cry from the well of doubts that he felt were finally being proven, after years of knowing how bad he was at fitting in with other people, pretending to belong until he _believed_ he did -

 

If he was going in this familiar circle again because he was alone and more prone to depressive thinking or alone and better able to reflect on the truths of his character, he couldn't tell the difference.  That was the point in calling someone else, to gain some perspective.  It sounded impossible the first time Dick had made him promise not to keep quiet when he was feeling overcome but he'd kept his word, for over a year he had been honest and asked for help.  
  
But he was living a different life then and there was no one left to trust now.  
  
Tim covered his face with his hands and just breathed.

 

 

Eventually nodding along to what he knew he should do, without listening to the voices in his head that were hissing about shame and the need for secrecy, he dug his cell out.  
  
He called a stranger.

**Author's Note:**

> Head canon: A quasi-adult Tim clocked a lot of time calling crisis hotlines to talk to someone because he couldn't trust his friends.


End file.
